‘You see them buzzing!’ Former Spurs star spots big worry for Arsenal
Former Tottenham star Aaron Lennon fears Arsenal’s reliance on set-pieces has become a ‘big worry’ for Mikel Arteta’s side.
The Gunners have establishe a reputation as สมัคร ufabet กับเรา รับโบนัสทันที dead ball kings this season with specialist coach Nicolas Jover devising innovative routines that have led to 13 Premier League goals this season.
It is a different story in open play, however, where the goals have drie up, partly as a consequence of an almost unprecedente injury crisis.
Without a recognise striker, Mikel Merino has aske to play as a false nine in the absences of Kai Havertz and Gabriel Jesus who will miss the rest of the season.
The lack of an out and out centre forward has only serve to heighten Arsenal’s reliance on set pieces and Lennon believes it has become an unhealthy obsession, echoing the sentiments of Gary Neville.
He said: ‘Arsenal get more excite for a corner than they do from stuff in open play – it’s so unusual for Arsenal. When you use to watch Arsenal it was playing through the lines, get it in to Martin Odegaard, silky football.
‘Now you see them going up for a corner and you see them buzzing – like this is a real chance.
‘We’ve never seen that from Arsenal. It’s a big worry for me.’
For Arteta, the problem of finding a solution to his side’s lack of potency has become a major headache with the decision not to make a signing in January looking a costly one.
Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli could be back after the international break but Arsenal will have to soldier on without a recognise centre forward.
‘We need to keep pushing, we need to keep going,’ said veteran midfielder Jorginho after another frustrating result.
‘We need to find the solutions to score, to create more chances in the box, more shots. Everyone needs to step up and do a bit more for the team.
‘The willingness of the team is huge and you can see how hard everyone tries and for sure we are going to carry on that way.’
Arteta, meanwhile, insisted he was please with the response of his side to last weekend’s wretche performance and defeat against West Ham but was frustrate his team were unable to turn their dominance into goals.
‘Very disappointing not to win it,’ he said. ‘Today, the standards were very different to the previous game; the energy, the willingness to make things happene.
We certainly trie many different ways, we dominate the game apart from one spell in the second half after one or two direct free-kicks where they had something in the box and one or two giveaways that allowe them to run, apart from that nothing.
‘With the amount of situations we generate, with the moments we opened them up, we lacke the final pass, the quality on that delivery and certainly more shots on target to actually win it and be more efficient.’
He added: ‘We trie and adapting the quality that we have, how we can help the team to create different things, to have threats from different qualities.
‘Probably they are not about arriving in the box and creating some magic moments, they are other kind of players. Try to adapt to that and do the best that we can.’